Omen
by RicksMichonne
Summary: Rick has lost his two children after arriving to Alexandria, and battles depression and his nightmares causing reoccurring events of the death of Judith and Carl. Michonne is Rick's only last hope, but the struggle to get Rick back to believing in hope is proving far more difficult either can imagine.


_Chapter I: Revelation 6:7-8_

" _The fight's over..you gotta let it go…I know it's hard, after it's kept you warm and fed...alive..but the fight..it turns on you. You gotta let it go."_

 **Ad Mortem.**

Blood splattered his body as screams echoed through his head. Limbs flew everywhere and wailing filled his thoughts. His eyes shut as hard as he could, but his body still shook as he could feel his baby daughter being ripped apart. His son being torn limb to limb, eaten and scavenged, blood rushing out every which way.

The bed shook as Rick's eyes jumped open and his body shaking. His nightmares weren't getting any better, in fact they worsened every day that he had his eyes closed. When his eyes _were_ open, he only had more thoughts to fuel the horrific dreams he was having every single night. Dry tears stained his cheeks as he rubbed his face, leaving it red and swollen. The blanket that was gently laying on him like a cloud of dust, warmed and soothed the slightest hint of panic swelling in his chest. He slowly leaned forward, adjusting himself as he sat on the edge of the bed, both hands between his legs and looking down at them.

He saw not hands, but weapons. Blood stained, carcass covered, broken, beaten down, forgotten.

After the death of his only children, nothing mattered. Nothing seemed to fulfill his life anymore. People he loved seemed to melt in his hands, as he had no grasp on reality anymore, and the thoughts of being responsible and feeling the guilt that his children's death was his fault seeped in his every single vein, each pump of his broken heart amplified the pain and enhanced his sorrow. His own body was turning on him, growing weaker and less reliable, more fragile.

There's a distant, quiet ringing penetrating through Rick's muted, languid thoughts. He's not quite asleep, not yet awake, drifting through some kind of abstract dreamscape that leaves his entire body feeling heavy and numb. Knowing he's lost and nowhere to go, he also knows his mind has been leaving him, abandoning him and losing all control of his senses, throwing away his hopes and morals, departing his own sense of trust and love.

His chest begins to burn, but it's not entirely unpleasant. The tingling heat prickling through his spine and pooling at the base of his lungs is familiar, a reminder that he isn't completely senseless and gone.

Rick moves his toes first, his feet brushing against the soft carpet, toes spreading as he presses his feet barely against the floor to stretch. He notices then that his mouth is unreasonably dry, almost pasty, as his lips parted around slow, noiseless exhales and inhales.

As his consciousness becomes more tangible, Rick senses that at least one of his presumptions is correct. Hunting and tracking with Daryl has honed a particular skillset, which tells him when he's being watched, and if the prickling hairs standing at attention all over his body are anything to go on, someone is staring at him right now.

"Rick?" Someone breathes, followed by the tell-tale squeak of rubber-soled boots on the hardwood floor.

He licks his lips, which are much more bitter and tasty than they should be. His tongue is slow and thick, practically unresponsive to the commands his brain is shouting at it, but there seems to be a thin layer of something sour coating his lips. It feels wrong.

 _Scotch_ , he thinks idly, or _maybe it's whiskey._

Rick couldn't quite tell, the only thing that he could base it off was that his lips tasted smoky and peaty, softer than it would of whiskey. Growing up how he did, he learned multiple fascinating facts about bourbon and liquor, both from his own drunken father and from sleepless nights taking care of friends who drank themselves to the brink of death, which enabled him to differentiate between the two that coursed his throat, but proved not so useful when he was too drunk to even see five inches in front of him.

Empty unlabeled bottles lay across his room floor, the ray of sunshine shone through his hitched up sheets serving as curtains. It was dark in the room, but just enough light seeped in that he could see who was standing at the doorway, but he chose not to do any of those things. Instead, hearing his name being called bounced around in his head like a racquetball, continuing to fill his thoughts on just his own name.

 _Rick,_ he muttered to himself, only in his mind. _Rick._

It's not until someone grabs his hand that he considers opening his eyes, and he does so with an almost violent conviction. He half expects, half hopes to see his children gently touching his shoulder, telling him it was only a dream, but as the blurred edges of reality sharpen and the room around him begins to take shape, it becomes readily apparent that the person holding his hand isn't Carl or Judith.

"Rick," the woman says, awed and shocked, "thank God."

The voice is familiar, light and soft with worry. He recognizes the tone and the underlying mixture of fear and relief, but it's off somehow; not making sense. It's not Daryl's voice, not Glenn's or Maggie's either – not that either of those would have been comforting – but it's someone he knows, he's sure of it.

Rick blinks a couple of times, letting his field of vision sharpen and narrow on the figure beside him.

He takes in the woman's features in pieces, letting them fall into place as his brain works out the puzzle. One by one he redeemed his sense of sight back, but nothing else seemed to work it's way in, or even attempt to figure out who she was.

Golden dark skin, piercing eyes, an architectural frame, the sword on her back.

"..'Chonne," Rick croaks, surprised by the samurai's presence, then by the raspy sound of his own voice. "fuck's goin' on?"

"Thank God," She repeats, her voice wavering a bit over the vowels. She pulls a chair right up to the side of Rick's bed and rests her arms on the back of it, sitting as if a disobedient kid would in the middle of class, leaning over and getting right up in Rick's business. _Personal space_. He wants to say that, because the nobody ever seems to remember, but then he recalls that Michonne is always the first one to respect his boundaries, to make sure he was safe before she was, or that he was in good hands, so he let this one go.

Her fingers made their way to Rick's hair, but it's too much social awkwardness for Rick to be able to return the gesture, since the feelings they both share for each other isn't in practicality just yet to reveal their true emotions.

The movement of her fingers rolling through Rick's sweaty curls wasn't what he thought it was, since his throat still sips down the scotch left on his drowsy lips. She was only checking him for a fever, or any sign of illness.

"Looks like Alexandria _-hyup-..._ has a new d _-hyup-_ doctor." Rick mumbles through hiccups, trying futilely to stand up. Michonne quickly rests her free hand on Rick's shoulder, sitting him back down.

He needs to investigate himself apparently, since he's still not sure what's going on.

Michonne's expression goes from worried to intolerant, as she comes to realize he drank his sadness away, for only temporary. Rick can't help the light sob apology that makes its way up his throat, and barely exits his mouth. Killers aren't exactly empathetic he thinks to himself. While his words slurred and his body ached, his dark thoughts and worry of his evil nature seemed to word itself with exact measurement and precise language. He felt as though his wicked side of his mind had taken a life of it's own.

"I can't e'en drink the bad thoughts away."

Michonne gave him a strange look. Her skin went pale, her eyebrows furrowing and worsening her mood, and the fingers running through Rick's hair go still and stiff.

"Rick." Michonne asks, more of a breath than a whisper. "Look at me."

Growing more and more impatient by the second, Rick groans. "I said I can't even drown myself in alcohol to get ridda those fucking thoughts."

"I'm here." Michonne whispers comfortly, tentatively, calmly.

"You're not though! No one is fucking here anymore!" Rick shouts, startling Michonne enough for her to lean back away from her chair and become afraid of him. She didn't know what kind of drunk he was, if he was an angry drunk, who broke things and yelled, or a loving drunk who hugged consistently and repeated themselves over and over, although this wasn't leading Michonne to believe he was one of those drunks.

Rick snaps. Blood pumping in his arms as his heart rate quickens and his head aches faster. The pain throbbed in his heart, physically and emotionally. It grew quiet. Not a single sound could find its way in the room to escape the quiet scrutiny of depression, of loneliness and sorrow, or of the horrific nightmares that flashed in his membrane, conquering his own sense of "here", and "now".

"My only job, was to not fail those two...the two things I'idn't wanna fail...I did every day."

He squeezes his eyes tight against the setting sun beaming through the shaded window, wishing the steadily growing pain throbbing in his skull would stop. The same hurt he woke up with, the sharp pulse of pain drumming against the right side of his head.

He lifts a hand on instinct, feeling for the most painful spot on his head that he can palpate with weak, ungainly effort. His body is strangely uncooperative.

Michonne looks like someone admitted to murder. She recoils at the bite of Rick's words, folding in on herself and quivering her lip.

Then Glenn walks in with heavy, thunderous steps. His eyes are a bit wild and his hair is much shorter than Rick remembers it, even though he saw him less than 24 hours ago. His drunken mind had reformed their own shapes of peers and family, distorting them, in an effort to control what was left of a good broken heart, which unknown to Rick, was bigger and not as destroyed as he thought.

"Hey guys," Glenn says, more worried than he intended, "I heard yelling, is everything ok?"

Rick pauses, but barely longer than a few seconds. He exchanges a wary glance with Michonne, and looks back to Glenn. Rick ignores him and looks down at his feet, still in the same position that Michonne first saw him in that morning. Clothes still on, the smell of hard liquor seeping in his fabric, the wrinkled shirt and dirty pants still not taken off, as the night before he was too drunk to even remove them off his body.

"How are you feeling, Rick?" Glenn asks, pulling up a chair and sitting beside the bed. He's staring intently at Rick's head, right at the spot where it hurts the most, and it's starting to make Rick feel self-conscious.

And scared. Mostly scared.

"Come on, Glenn," Michonne says, looking at Rick but head tilted at Glenn's direction. Rick squints to Michonne, the movement sends another jolt of pain through his skull; Rick hisses and clutches at the sides of his head, groaning at the sudden wave of nausea crawling up his spine.

"You're not going anywhere, Rick. You're lucky it wasn't as bad as it could have been," Michonne insists, lifting herself up from the chair and putting it back where it came from.

She scoots Glenn away, protecting Rick's weakened bubble. He's alarmed at how clumsy he feels, how dizzy and violently ill he's sure he's about to be. Hangover.

"Take it easy, okay?" Glenn assures, back facing the door but head turned to Rick as he exits the room. "You woke up, and that's huge. Big victory today, but you're kind of talking nonsense and we gotta make sure you're going to be alright in the long run. You need to stay calm so nothin' worse happens, ok?"

Glenn keeps his eyes narrowed and steadfast on Rick's, waiting for a reply. When he doesn't get one, he repeats, "Okay?"

"Whatever," Rick dismisses, falling back into his bed. He opts for pretending he didn't hear that waking up wasn't something Michonne thought Rick was going to do.

He's probably injured a lot worse than he realized.

Shit. Maybe that's why Michonne hasn't done anything to help. Maybe Rick's got something not even medical skills can't cure, let alone a comforting friend.

 _That's pretty fucking unsettling._

Michonne waves Glenn back downstairs, acting as if she's leaving with him, but turns back to Rick just before she leaves.

"What's the last thing you remember?" She asks, putting one hand on the door frame and leaning into it.

"Not much," Rick admits, scratching absently at the back of his neck, pushing the pillow behind his head to make room for his aching hands.

"Got int'a the liquor cabinet, drank till I couldn't feel shit, n' got nauseous. Everythan' went black and then I'm wakin' up here next to your bright, sunshiny faces."

"You're unhinged." Michonne sighs, gazing down at her feet and shaking her head.

"Give me a break," he groans, turning to Michonne. He expects to find a knowing look on his friend's face, some kind of acknowledgement that, yeah, Rick is being a real pain in the ass, but that's not what he gets.

When neither of them say anything, when the silence and awkward glances become too much, Rick scowls. "What?"

"Nothin'. Just get it together. We've all lost something."

Michonne's chin trembles. There's a long, uncomfortable pause while Rick tries to keep himself from outright sobbing, but it doesn't quite work. Michonne walks away slowly, pulling the door shut behind her. He can hear her boots one tap at a time hitting the stairs, hands gliding down the wall to keep herself in position.

The mood of the room changes to something dark and sour. It's just Rick now, again.


End file.
